Google and the end of the teacher? How a figuration of the teacher is produced through an ed-tech discourse

This article analyzes how a figuration of the teacher is made up within an ed-tech discourse and how it organizes how we think of teaching. It departs from an interview study with 25 ‘edupreneurs’ selling hardware, software, and/or professional development regarding digital tools to Swedish schools. The analysis illuminates how the ‘desired teacher’ is similar to what is conceptualized as a Silicon Valley culture, privileging characteristics valued in the IT sector. Such a teacher coaches rather than lectures, is flexible, and ready to work whenever and wherever. S/he customizes his/her work to the individual student and his/her needs of knowledge, location, and timeframes, emphasizing that education is a personal business. ‘Boring’ parts of the work (grading and assessment) are believed to be taken over by technology. The teacher should be the one promising fun and creativity in order to educate dreamers for the future and workers in a knowledge economy. With help from Castells’ theory of the network society, the study illuminates and discuss what this means for how we can think of school in terms of teacher authority, place and time. It also claims that a commercialized, neoliberal rationale is made possible in schools through the platforms.